Revealing
by raspberryseedz
Summary: Now a two-shot. Megamind stumbles on a little secret of Roxanne's. Even the smallest revelation has a way of changing things.
1. Chapter 1

...

**Revealing**

...

"You have fifteen minutes Metro-_mahn_!" Megamind's voice reverberated through the lair, no doubt echoing in a broadcast across Metro City. "In fifteen minutes, my Mega-Volt Incinerator will be activated, using Roxanne Ritchi to conduct the 500,000 volts of electricity needed to turn Metr_osity_ into a charcoal wasteland!" Megamind gestured to the large iron machine hovering in an almost full circle in the center of the lair, it's two open ends connected by a scornful Roxanne Ritchi, none too pleased that she was spending a Friday evening shackled with her arms over her head to a doomsday device.

"Better make that seven minutes, Metro Man," she called toward the monitor, where Megamind was broadcasting his latest ultimatum. "My arms are getting a little tired."

Megamind shot her an indignant look before giving Minion the order to start the overly-large timer attached to the front of the device. "_Fifteen_ _minutes_, Fly-boy! Either you complete the circuit on my Mega-Volt Incinerator or _she_ does," he finished with a sinister lilt as he shut off the video feed.

This was truly one of his more clever schemes, if he did say so himself. Making his hostage, and soon Metro Man himself, a physical part of his latest doomsday device would surely be an interesting break from the norm. He wasn't sure if he liked the iron shackles though, because they were a bit medieval-looking, perhaps too much of a departure from his usual style. And Miss Ritchi certainly looked a bit angrier than usual, but that could be attributed to a great many things, and Megamind wasn't about to try to guess the true reason for her annoyance.

As for Roxanne, she was beginning to consider this one of Megamind's more uncomfortable kidnappings. He had never tied her with her arms angled up like this before. Usually, they were bound behind her back, or else her middle was wound with enough rope to keep her arms pinned to her sides. At least the customary time limit was reasonably shorter than usual; she didn't like the idea of her arms going numb while waiting for Metro Man to get here.

Megamind approached her, shoulders back, head high. The platform Roxanne's feet were currently shackled to made her a good foot or so taller than him and he didn't want to appear small. "Well, Miss Ritchi, how do you like my most _current_ creation of evil? It's _shocking,_ no?"

Roxanne groaned. "About as re-_volt_-ing as your terrible puns."

She glared down her nose at him, and he thought that it seemed wrong somehow. As if, even though she was the hostage and he the criminal, she still held some kind of power over him. Megamind quickly started to regret making that platform so tall.

He took a casual step to the side, half to keep his momentum going and half to get out of her uncomfortable gaze. That was one big advantage to this set-up: the way Roxanne was attached to the device, he could circle around her completely while still being relatively close and intimidating.

"Resistance is futile, Miss Ritchi," he says. She hadn't attempted to resist her bonds yet, but a subtle suggestion couldn't hurt. "Those chains are forged from a metal alloy strong enough to withstand even Metro Man's strength…"

"And they kinda chafe, too," Roxanne fired back, shaking the manacles a little.

Megamind came around to face her again, pushing himself on tiptoe in an effort to get into her face. "That smart mouth will get you nowhere."

"Just like these schemes of yours," she retorts without missing a beat.

He began another revolution about his captive. Only her eyes followed him as he paced around her, disappearing from her peripheral vision. "You just wait till your knight in white tights comes charging in and…" something caught his eye and stopped him in his tracks. "What… what is_ that_ on your back?" Megamind didn't even care that the sudden, awed question probably killed whatever threatening tone he was going for. In fact, he forgot what he was supposed to be doing entirely.

Roxanne's heart leapt into her throat and she strained to twist herself enough to glance over her shoulder, her fixed hands and feet giving her little slack to work with.

"Minion, come over here and look at this." Megamind gestured emphatically to his friend like an excited child who found the hiding place for his birthday presents. The fish locked a curious eye with Roxanne before joining his boss. "Miss Ritchi," Megamind sighed, "would you please _stop_ wiggling so much, I told you resistance is futile. Now, Minion, is that what I think it is?"

"_What_ are you talking about?" Roxanne snapped, annoyed that she couldn't effectively see either of them.

He pointed a gloved finger at the sliver of exposed skin where Roxanne's shirt had risen from having her arms raised for a while. Twin swirls of blue trailed down the visible inch of the small of her back, disappearing from view under the waistline of her skirt.

Minion made a noise that sounded suspiciously like someone trying to clear their throat. "Well, it appears to be a tattoo, Sir."

Megamind could do nothing but gape, jaw hanging loose, still pointing at the patch of skin. Roxanne Ritchi had a _tattoo_. Roxanne Ritchi, the absolute model of conservative virtue, Metro City's golden girl, had a tattoo. _He_ didn't even have one. Granted with his preferred wardrobe it would be pretty pointless for him to get one since no one would ever see it unless he tattooed his skull, but still! Roxanne usually had her back completely covered, so how many people even knew that this marvel existed?

"Something back there _interest you_?" Roxanne barked, her voice ice cold and threatening.

"We just weren't expecting you to have a tattoo, Miss Ritchi…" Minion broke in softly, attempting to act as mediator.

"Yes," Megamind finally added, when he found his voice. "Who would've guessed Metro City's star reporter has had her back violated by ink."

"Oh please," Roxanne groaned, rolling her eyes, despite the fact that neither of them could see. "It's just a tattoo I got when I was seventeen and trying to feel rebellious. It's not even a risqué tattoo."

"Oh _really_!" Megamind perked up, mocking and coy. "Then why hide it so thoroughly, Miss Ritchi? We can't see much of it. What is the whole tattoo actually _of?_"

"None of your business!" Roxanne retorted sharply.

"Sounds a bit _defensive_ to me…" Megamind observed slyly.

"I'm not being defensive, you're being a creep," Roxanne growled.

"Sir," Minion pleaded, resting an apprehensive hand on Megamind shoulder. The hand went ignored.

"I mean, what's the point of having it if no one ever sees it?" Megamind went on, oblivious to Minion, his voice lowered conspiratorially. "Does Metro Man even know it's there?"

"That is _it!_" Roxanne snapped."Get out here where I can see you! Front and center, both of you!"

The two froze, exchanging shocked looks. Roxanne had certainly never been a traditional screaming, fainting hostage but she had never actually tried to order them around before. And she had never really raised her voice like that before, either. She was usually so unaffected and calm. It was jarring and strangely surreal and Megamind didn't have a clue as to how to respond to it.

"_Now_!" she added, with dangerous emphasis.

Something in her tone of voice snapped Megamind out of his daze and he staggered away from her, dragging Minion by the arm along with him. He could see her face from their new vantage point, and he'd never seen her so flushed and angry.

"What is your _problem_?" Roxanne demanded, glaring down at the two villains, still staring at her with wide eyes and unhinged jaws. "Look, I've put up with a lot of discomfort from you. I've been knocked out, tied up, strapped to bombs, and dangled over alligator pits more times than I can count. But I absolutely can_not _put up with you _ogling my ass like that!_"

Megamind flushed instantaneously. "I was not goggle… og…goog… I was not _staring_ at your ass!"

"What do _you_ call it then?" she shot back.

Megamind's mouth opened and closed and then reopened in a helpless cycle that made him look more like a fish than his companion.

Said companion spoke up rather meekly, addressing the irate captive. "We apologize, Miss Ritchi. We didn't mean to make you uncomfortable."

The simple, honest apology actually managed to make Roxanne feel a little better. Call her crazy, but of all the times she'd been kidnapped and tossed around the city, she had never really felt _objectified_ before. Sure, she was constantly being used as bait to drag a muscle-bound man in tights into confrontation after confrontation, but there was always a sort of social element to it. As if Megamind kept dragging her into it because she was one of the few people in Metro City who would cross verbal swords with him, a battle in and of itself. Minion had always been great for polite small talk, as well, which had been hard to find for her lately. And she would never admit it, but it was all a bit _fun_, especially when Megamind's ego and his clumsiness gave her such great material to throw back at him and tease him with.

And even though he had little to no concept of personal space, when Megamind got into her face he, well, got into her _face_. When he stared at her, he stared right at her eyes, which would probably be disorienting for some people, but Roxanne was more than comfortable trying to stare him down in return. Having that energy focused on her backside instead of her eyes troubled her in a way she hadn't entirely expected.

Roxanne watched Minion nudge Megamind solidly in the side.

"What?" the blue menace hissed.

Minion twitched in his tank, mimicking the human motion of a not-too-subtle head jerk in Roxanne's direction.

Megamind's eyes darted over Roxanne, still manacled with her arms over her head and that offensive stripe of bare skin showing at her middle. She looked angry, but there was something else in her expression, as well. She had been angry with him before, that was nothing new, but this look was unsettling and different. It was as if he had actually hurt her somehow. Megamind's vision trailed down to floor. Clearly, this particular hostage set-up was a terrible idea.

"Minion, would you get Miss Ritchi a chair, please?" he requested quietly. The order felt hollow and dry in his throat. Somehow, it didn't make him feel any better at all.

"Right away, Sir," Minion replied, not even bothering to point out that allowing their hostage to sit would render the device useless.

Roxanne straightened. She hadn't expected that. Granted, it wasn't really an apology, but it was still quite unlike him to readjust his plans solely because she was uncomfortable. His whole posture was a bit strange, too. Arms crossed stiffly against himself, leaning so his cape covered him almost entirely, eyes darting from the floor to the ceiling to the doorway Minion just exited through, anywhere but at her. He looked pretty purple, too. If they had been in a better mood, she'd probably have made some crack about how much he looked like a grape. However, he seemed so shaken-up and nervous she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He actually looked… embarrassed.

"Umm…" she wracked her brain, needing something, anything, to ward off the incoming lapse of uncomfortable silence. "Thanks for the chair, I guess," she tried.

"You're, um, you're welcome," he responded, glancing at her, then back to the floor again. How had this even happened? He wasn't supposed to cater to his hostage. Then again, he wasn't supposed to ogle her either. He was evil, but he wasn't lecherous. But how was he supposed to know she'd take it that way? He hadn't even realized he'd been staring at her for so long until she'd accused him of it.

And really, that was what bothered him. He shouldn't have been interested in her comfort, or her feelings, or her tattoo, or her ass or anything. He shouldn't have been interested in her at all; she was a means to an end, a device to get Metro Man's attention. Granted, he did like having someone around that knew how to banter well, even if she did have an annoying tendency to pick apart his schemes before Metro Man even got there. But why should he care that she'd had the sloping curve in her back decorated like that?

Yet somehow, he found it fascinating. Roxanne had always been defiant and feisty, but in a controlled, mainstream, appropriate sort of way. The people he had grown up with were often tattooed and pierced to varying degrees, and they had raised him with the knowledge that most deadbeat, normal people frowned upon such things. And here was Roxanne with a respectable job and a respectable boyfriend and the mark of an apparent rebellious streak that belonged more in _his_ world than it did in hers.

The fact that he had barely seen any of it only fueled his fascination further. What image would a seventeen-year-old Roxanne Ritchi decide to permanently ink onto her back? Something cheesy like a flower or the Chinese character for beauty? Her name? The name of an ex-boyfriend? For that matter, how many people had she let see it? Did many people know it was there, or had he stumbled onto a guarded secret? A secret he shouldn't even care about, and yet…

Roxanne began fidgeting, shaking her manacles and staring at the floor with her mouth pressed into a stiff line while she waited for Minion to return with her chair. Now that Megamind thought about it, her mouth was kind of fascinating, too. Thin at the top and plump on the bottom, and able to stretch and purse and contort itself into a variety of shapes. Her eyes were pretty interesting as well. He didn't even have to see them to remember what they looked like. Same with her hair and her hips and… this was getting _ridiculous!_

The silence in the lair began to grow unbearable. Up until then, their interactions had been characterized by endless amounts of back and forth, insults building on insults, threats met with defiance. The current state of quiet created an uncomfortable void that dwarfed anything that had happened earlier and left both captor and captive wishing Metro Man would just crash through the wall and end it. Megamind could handle the yelling, he could handle Roxanne being angry with him. But he couldn't handle the silence, he couldn't handle being so humiliated and confused he couldn't even look at her for more than a split second.

Megamind coughed. "It seems Metro Man only has eight minutes left to…"

"Do you _honestly_ want to talk about Metro Man right now?" Roxanne interrupted with a groan.

"Yes," he replied lamely, eyes fixed on the flashing timer.

"Y'know, you could apologize," she suggested wryly. "Just a thought."

He scoffed at her. "Villains don't _apologize_, Miss Ritchi, and I think we've had enough awkward moments for one day."

"Minion doesn't seem to have a problem apologizing."

"Minion doesn't have a problem eating fish flakes either." Megamind mumbled irritably. He was getting her a chair, wasn't that enough?

"All right, how about this," Roxanne proposed, slow and even without a hint of sarcasm. "If you promise not tell anyone about my tattoo, I promise not to tell anyone you apologized and we can go back to normal, okay?"

"Well that's hardly fair. Who am I going to tell? Minion? I don't even know what your tattoo looks like."

"And you never will." Roxanne sighs. "And you should be apologizing anyway, I'm just trying to give you an out so you don't have to worry about your precious reputation or whatever."

"Oh." Megamind responded flatly. When had she become a negotiator? When had negotiating with his captive become a welcome idea? He started to toy absently with the hem of his cape. "I, um…I…"

"You…?" She prodded, leaning forward as much as she could, expectantly.

He let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm sorry I o-ogled you," he managed, half-choking. He chanced a look at her, fixing his gaze on the crease at the corner of her eye.

Roxanne blinked. It was hardly the best apology she'd ever heard. The fact that she'd had to bargain with him for it kind of killed whatever sincerity she would've liked. But she hadn't expected him to go through with it quite that quickly, if at all, and with such little incentive. And then there was that crack in his voice. After all this time she could tell the difference between him struggling to pronounce a word and struggling just to _say_ it.

"Apology accepted," she said with a sly smile. "But only because you stammered."

Minion returned with Roxanne's chair under one arm. Megamind busied himself with the control panel, lowering the chains gradually until her hands were at her sides.

She tugged her shirt back into place as if nothing had really happened.

...

**A/N:** A big, hearty thanks to my wonderful betas BorntothePurple and raywing for your awesome suggestions and edits!

I wrote this after watching Stranger Than Fiction, which is where the last two lines of dialogue come from. Will Ferrell's love interest in that movie had a bunch of tattoos up one arm as well and that somehow burrowed it's way into my mind and turned into this oneshot.


	2. Chapter 2

AN: I actually was not gonna write a follow up to this it just sorta... happened.

xxxxxxxxxx

"Is that pink?"

"Actually it's maroon. Pink is usually much lighter."

"I am_ not_ wearing pink."

"Megamind," Roxanne momentarily stopped rummaging though her dresser to face her boyfriend, who was perched at the edge of her bed and gripping the comforter with an uncompromisingly horrified expression on his face. "I promise you I will never,_ ever_ suggest you wear pink." She held up the questionably colored pair of shorts with scrutiny before casually tossing them back into her drawer. "These would probably be too big on you anyway."

Megamind let out an exasperated sigh and fell backwards against the bed, his legs dangling off one edge of the mattress and his head lolling off the other side. "I still don't see what's wrong with what I'm wearing. I swim in this all the time."

Roxanne shook her head playfully. "I think you'll find the beach a slightly different experience than Minion's little indoor pool." She took his wrist, fingering the thin edge of his leather bodysuit, waterproof leather, he assured her. "The second sand gets stuck in this you'll be completely miserable for the rest of the day. Trust me."

"You know this from experience?" He smirked, pulling his head up just far enough to look at her.

"Not exactly a leather-induced experience, but yes." She smirked back. "Wearing a bodysuit is pretty unnecessary, unless you plan on another impromptu beach trip in the dead of winter..."

"For the record," Megamind jabbed a finger pointedly into the air, "it is impossible to _plan_ an impromptu trip. It goes against the very definition of the word."

Roxanne, who had returned to digging through her dresser at the sound of another blossoming rant, merely hummed in acknowledgment.

"And I thought you said you wanted to go. Since we both have the day off and everything…"

"I_ do_ want to go," Roxanne replied. "I just hadn't expected you to bounce in five minutes later in a leather wetsuit." She tossed several rolled up t-shirts onto the bed before reaching to the back of the drawer and pulling out a pair of gym shorts. "I'm guessing lavender is not an option either?"

The look Megamind gave her could've frozen a lake solid.

"Alright, alright, no more pastels." Roxanne laughed before moving on to the next drawer. "I could've sworn I had more bathing suits in here. I kept a bunch I haven't worn since college."

"The selection so far isn't promising," Megamind muttered. "I don't see how a lady's swimsuit is much of an improvement over what I'm wearing." He cautiously eyed the growing pile of discarded clothing Roxanne was accumulating on the bed next to him. "And you are no longer allowed to tease me for being a pack rat! Look at this," he gestured at the pile, pulling out a black and red striped one-piece for inspection. "I thought only gymnasts wore these."

"You learn something new everyday." Roxanne sighed, shutting the last drawer. "I'm gonna check my closet, I might've stashed them there."

"Take your time," Megamind said to her retreating form. Truthfully he had expected to already be knee deep in water by now. Roxanne had a tendency to make his ideas into something much more time consuming than they needed to be.

He nudged another modestly cut swimsuit aside and started to unroll one of her t-shirts, a white one with a large peace sign emblazoned on  
>the front. Another was a faded yellow shirt and another, curiously enough, bore a Led Zeppelin logo, so worn the letters were barely distinguishable.<p>

"Ha! Found it!" Roxanne exclaimed from the shadow behind her closet door. Megamind was suddenly struck with the chilling feeling that his curiosity might seem a little forward and shoved the Zeppelin shirt into the bottom of the pile, scrambling away from it in what he hoped was a nonchalant manner.

Roxanne didn't seem to notice. She plopped a moderately sized plastic bin next to him before sliding onto the bed herself. "They were buried behind all my high school cheer stuff."

"Pack rat." Megamind smirked.

She stuck her tongue out at him. "At least my sentimental clutter doesn't need an entire warehouse."

Before he could properly defend his more technological brand of clutter, Roxanne had opened the bin revealing a conspicuously bright polka-dotted bikini atop a jumble of polyester and colored straps.

"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" he asked in a low voice.

She snatched up the bikini top before he could. "What, this?" she asked as innocently as she could, dangling the garment in front of him like a carrot. "I didn't think this was your color, but if you really want it…"

"Not for _me_," he chided, not entirely sure if she was still teasing him.

"Well then who for?" she asked, unapologetically facetious. "We're shopping for you after all."

"But I don't… it's your bikini, and I just, I'm not really shaped for… This was _your_ idea!"

His babbling only made her laugh. Megamind slumped back onto the bed. Usually making Roxanne laugh made him feel good about himself, but when she was laughing because he'd blundered something it tended to have the opposite effect. And why did she have to be so insistent on getting him to change clothes? She never had a problem with what he wore before.

"Oh, c'mon, don't be like that," Roxanne sighed once her giggling had tapered off. "Here, this is what I was looking for in the first place."

She was holding up a pair of stiff looking shorts, black with two thin white stripes running down the sides. They looked long enough to go down to her knees with a drawstring tied at the waist, and were so bizarrely different and unfeminine compared with most everything else he'd seen of hers it sent his brain whirring.

"Better?" Roxanne asked.

"Expansively." Megamind sighed, relieved. "I mean, I suppose it could work, as a backup or something."

Roxanne decided that was good enough and she shouldn't press the issue any further. "It's good to have a backup plan." She tossed him the board shorts before hopping off the bed. "Now go make sure it fits before we leave. I still need to get changed, too."

Megamind fumbled with the garment, turning the odd, thin material over in his hands. He still thought this was rather unnecessary, but they had wasted enough time getting the silly thing he might as well try it on. Roxanne wouldn't give him a moment's peace if he didn't, anyway. There was just one problem:

"Roxanne…" he swallowed, trying to delay time, to wrack his brain and come up with a proper way to ask this. Though he doubted a proper way even existed.

"Yes?"

"Could you help me out of this? The suit. I mean, not the whole suit just the slipper… zipper!" he finally choked out. "Can you help me with the zipper?"

"Your swimsuit has a zipper?" Roxanne asked, unphased by either the question or the haphazard manner in which it was given.

"All my suits have zippers," he said. "Small ones." He didn't really feel like mentioning he needed the brainbots to get dressed every day like a child.

Roxanne nodded. "That makes sense. You can't exactly pull those tight collars on over your head…"

"Well you can try, but it's not very easy," Megamind joked lamely.

"Right." Roxanne gave him a small smile. "Turn around."

Megamind complied, trying desperately to quiet the shaking through his spine as Roxanne touched his collar.

"This is tiny," Roxanne commented, trying to flick the bit of zipper out with a fingernail so she could grasp it.

"The brainbots usually take care of it." Megamind winced.

She pinched the zipper and then suddenly changed her mind. She rested her hand on his shoulder, soft and calm. "Megamind, you don't have to change unless you want to. I know I can be bossy sometimes but I really don't care all that much about what you wear. I just wanted you to be comfortable, that's all."

There was a lot that Megamind wanted to say. A part of him wanted to reassure her that he was absolutely fine with this, there was nothing strange or new or uncomfortable about having her help him this way. Another part wanted to berate her for starting this whole, silly mess when she could have left him alone. And yet another part of him simply reminded the other two that any worthwhile experience he'd ever had with Roxanne had required exposing himself a little.

"It's okay." He managed, swallowing.

"Alright," she said quietly. Her hands trailed from his shoulder to his collar and finally eased the zipper down an inch, then another, and then another. The brainbots had appendages designed for precision work and could do this in a millisecond but Roxanne's fingers were considerably slower and clumsier. At least Megamind assumed she wasn't moving tantalizingly slowly on purpose.

Finally, she stopped. "Is… that far enough?" she asked, sounding very small.

"Yes!" Megamind darted two large steps forward. "I mean, I'll, um… take it from here, I guess. I'll just, uh, go… over…" he stumbled around the room, searching, "over here!" He ducked into her closet, shutting the door and leaning against it, trying in vain to process why that turned into such a huge fiasco.

It didn't take long for Megamind to realize he couldn't stay in Roxanne's closet forever and the sooner he got changed the sooner this  
>awkward situation could be put to rest. After groping around the closet for a while, he realized the light switch was actually outside the door and therefore he had to get dressed in the dark. Peeling his own suit off took little effort but figuring out which side of Roxanne's shorts was meant to be the front took a little longer. The drawstring had to be pulled pretty far in order for the waist to fit, and they were so loose he still felt naked wearing them.<p>

A soft knock vibrated from the door. "Megamind, you coming out?" Roxanne's voice sounded.

"Yeah," he took a breath and pushed the door open, thoroughly unprepared for the sight that greeted him on the other side.

Roxanne was standing in front of him wearing nothing but the polka-dot bikini.

He had seen her in a lot of various outfis over the years but nothing compared to the sheer amount of skin this one showed off. He was staring so blatantly and for so long he barely noticed her large eyes staring at _him_, probably for the exact same reason.

Roxanne tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, eyes falling to the floor. "So, they fit alright?"

"Yeah…" Megamind leaned against the closet door, smiling appreciatively before suddenly realizing she was asking about _his_ apparel and not hers. "I mean, yes, they fit okay."

She smiled thoughtfully, hooked a finger into the waistline of his shorts and then tugged, drawing him near. "They are a bit big," she admitted, "But I think they'll work." She eyed the interesting knot he'd used to keep the drawstring in place, probably for a little too long.

"My eyes are up here, Miss Ritchi." Megamind said, dry and with the smallest of smirks.

Roxanne jumped. Her hands left him instantly and her gaze snapped up almost to the ceiling. "Sorry, it's just strange seeing in you in my… well, something that isn't, uh… That's not to say you don't look good, I mean…"

"Are you blushing?" Megamind asked, Roxanne's lack of composure somehow made him feel a little bit better about his own fumbling earlier.

"What?"

"You're all red," he remarked, gingerly reaching out to touch her face. "I've never seen you this flustered before."

"Yeah, well… don't get used to it," she murmured.

"Now, don't be like that, Miss Ritchi," he reached around to the small of her back and gently pulled her closer. "I think I like seeing you a bit flustered for a change."

Roxanne had recovered from most of her initial embarrassment and crossed her arms over her chest defiantly, eyes narrowed and a hint of a  
>smile on her lips. "Fine, smart guy, you keep acting all smug and I won't show what I was planning on showing you."<p>

Megamind's face fell. "You were planning on _what_?"

"Just something I thought you might be interested in," she smiled, coy.

"Oh, believe me, Miss Ritchi, you have my undivided interest."

She gently removed Megamind's hands so she could take a step back. "I can see that," she observed, quietly studying his face before finally turning around.

His eye was instantly drawn, not to the bright polka dot bikini, but to the blue image spread across her lower back. Stylized swirls looking almost like waves echoed the dramatic swell of her hips and within them were the words: _All that glitters is not gold_.

"All that glitters… like from Stairway to Heaven?" Megamind asked.

"No, The Merchant of Venice," Roxanne smirked at him over her shoulder. "Stairway to Heaven had the opposite line…" she started to sing, quiet and a little tone-deaf, "There's a lady who's sure all that glitters is gold…"

"Not a very smart lady," he smiled.

"I didn't think so, but I really liked the song anyway. Snuck out to go to a concert of theirs once when I was in high school, in fact."

"Snuck out?" Megamind sounded scandalized.

Roxanne shrugged. "All my friends were going, I didn't want to be left out just because my parents wouldn't let me go. You do stupid things like that when you're young."

Megamind felt absolutely giddy. "I didn't realize you were such a delinquent! Lying, sneaking around, disrespecting authority…"

"Hey, nobody wants to be the good girl all the time," she said with a light defensiveness, "And even then I didn't like other people telling me what to do. Even if it was my parents, if they didn't have a decent reason for not approving of something I wanted to discover it for myself and make my own decision about it, y'know?"

Megamind nodded. That was Roxanne in a nutshell. The Roxanne that thought for herself and acted on her own conscience not what others expected of her. The Roxanne that didn't take anything at face value. Not everything that looked beautiful is worthwhile. All that glitters is not gold.

He took her hips in both hands, slowly turning her until they were face to face again. "That used to drive me crazy," he confessed. "Knowing you had that tattoo and I'd never be able to figure out what it was."

"Never guessed I was a Led Zeppelin fan, huh?"

"You learn something new everyday. Though I must say, it suits you quite well, Miss Ritchi."

Roxanne wove her arms around his neck, closing the small gap between them. "It does, doesn't it?"

"Anything else in your sordid web of secrecy you'd like me to know about?"

She pulled her lips into a thin line, like she was trying not to smile; a telltale redness crept into her face. "Honestly, I think at this point…you know me better than anyone else."

That genuinely surprised him. "I do? But what about all those people you knew, all that stuff you did growing up. I wasn't there for any of that."

"No, but that was a long time ago, Megamind. None of those people are here now, and I don't really talk about it with anyone. No one else in my life now has seen me dressed like this, nobody's seen that tattoo, nobody's seen me _flustered_," the last word rolled of her tongue with an amused lilt. "Just you."

His hands fidgeted at her hips. "Oddly enough," he said, "I can say the same thing about you."

"Really?"

He nodded, as if she needed the affirmation, and drew his arms around her waist until he was holding her flush against him; hip against  
>hip, chest to chest, skin on skin. She responded, crossing her arms over his bare back and unabashedly leaning her head against his. They were deliberately dawdling now, but he didn't mind so much.<p>

"So, does this mean I've discovered all the secrets of the infamous Roxanne Ritchi?" he asked straight into her ear.

"Not exactly." He could practically hear her smile. "Let's just say you're ahead of the curve. Way ahead."

Megamind supposed that was good enough for now. More than enough, really, his heart felt so absolutely punch-drunk and full he didn't know how he'd handle any more.

He continued to hold her with one hand and slowly traced the tattoo with the other just to feel her laugh.


End file.
